Integration of silicon photonics in bulk CMOS

Abstract

The first monolithic process flow integrating silicon photonics on operational bulk CMOS has been developed. Features include deep-trench isolation, polysilicon waveguides, grating couplers, filters, modulators, and detectors. Fully functional on-chip CMOS enables Tx/Rx operation while minimizing interconnect parasitics. With the addition of an external 1280nm source, a fully functional optical link (5Gb/s 2.8pJ/b), capable of wavelength division multiplexing, has been demonstrated. In addition to the polysilicon resonant detector used in the link, a monolithically-integrated Silicon-Germanium selective epitaxial growth based photodetector was developed.